emed to her more than earthly. This same cavalier had
at a previous time, before my mother was married, had designs on her
virtue, which she rejected with indignation. She recognized him, but
now, irradiated by the light of the gems, he seemed to her a creature
of a higher sphere, the very incarnation of beauty. The cavalier
noticed the longing, fiery looks which she was bending on him, and
thought he was in better luck now than of old. He managed to get near
her, and to separate her from her companions, and entice her to a
lonely place. There he clasped her eagerly in his arms. My mother
grasped at the beautiful chain; but at that moment he fell down,
dragging her with him. Whether it was apoplexy, or what, I do not know;
but he was dead. My mother struggled in vain to free herself from the
clasp of the arms, stiffened as they were in death. With the hollow
eyes, whence vision had departed, fixed on her, the corpse rolled with
her to the ground. Her shrieks at length reached people who were
passing at some distance; they hastened to her, and rescued her from
the embrace of this gruesome lover. Her fright laid her on a bed of
dangerous sickness. Her life was despaired of as well as mine; but she
recovered, and her confinement was more prosperous than had been
thought possible. But the terrors of that awful moment had set their
mark on _me_. My Evil Star had risen, and darted into me those rays
which kindled in me one of the strangest and most fatal of passions.
Even in my earliest childhood I thought there was nothing to compare
with glittering diamonds with gold settings. This was looked upon as a
childish fancy; but it was otherwise, for as a boy I stole gold and
jewels wherever I could lay hands on them, and I knew the difference
between good ones and bad, instinctively, like the most accomplished
connoisseur. Only the pure and valuable attracted me; I would not touch
alloyed or coined gold. Those inborn cravings were kept in check by my
father's severe chastisements; but, so that I might always have to do
with gold and precious stones, I took up the goldsmith's calling. I
worked at it with passion, and soon became the first living master of
that art. Then began a period when the natural bent within me, so long
restrained, shot forth in power, and waxed with might, bearing
everything away before it. As soon as I finished a piece of work and
delivered it, I fell into a state of restlessness and disconsolateness
which p